Performance comparison between two novel configurations of liquid desiccant air-conditioning system

This paper is concerned with performance investigation and comparison between two novel configurations (type A and type B) of liquid desiccant air-conditioning system driven by low grade thermal energies. Both of these configurations, compared with other liquid desiccant systems, may have some outstanding advantages: leading to improved indoor air qualities, possessing a compact structure and making the best use of space exhaust air to cool the process air. Computer simulation is performed to analyze the cycle performance of these two system configurations under the effect of five key variables. Simulation results show that type B configuration is superior when the supply air temperature and humidity ratio are required to be relatively low or the ambient air absolute humidity is relatively high. In contrast, system of type A configuration has higher performance under the lower ambient air absolute humidity conditions. For a typical hot and humid summer day of Zhuhai, a city of Guangdong Province in southern China, the supply air temperature of type B configuration is more stable.